


Bastards and heirs

by Rogercat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Child Neglect, Childbirth, Dragonstone, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Female Jon Snow, Gen, Genderswap, Half-Siblings, Loss of Parent(s), Older Woman/Younger Man, Sibling Rivalry, Smuggling, Step-parents, Westeros, Winterfell, bastards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 15:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14358153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rogercat/pseuds/Rogercat
Summary: Joanna Snow is used to be a outsider, but even a bastard can climb across the social ladder





	Bastards and heirs

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: If Ned comes off as cold and uncaring in this story, blame it on that he in canon DOES underestimate how dangerous Ceseri is about protecting her children. He also seems to think that Arya will become more ladylike as she grows up, while it is understandable that he does not want her to end up like Lyanna, he is still raised in a world that strongly believes in strict gender roles. 
> 
> Sansa may also come off as a unpleasant person, but please remember that this is her as a 11-year-old back in the Games of Thrones book, where she have grown up sheltered by her parents and is hopelessly naive about how cruel the world outside Winterfell actually is. Mistaking Joffrey for a classical Prince Charming and Cersei as a Queen to please is two of her biggest mistakes.

Joanna Snow, the fourteen-year-old bastard daughter of Eddard Stark, was most unhappy. Not, not because of Lady Catelyn, through her stepmother was part of the reason for her current mood. 

 

“Father, surely you can not be serious? Sansa is already betrothed to Prince Joffrey, surely there is no need to…” she started, only for him to raise a hand to silent her.

 

“Even as the oldest daughter, you are still not a child born of my lady wife. I know that many have requested your hand in marriage since you flowered and is able to bear children. You will come along to King's Landing, where I shall find a husband for you.”

 

Joanna wanted to scream, cry. Yet somehow, she remains numb. As much as her father loves her, she hates that he have never once told her the name of her mother. Is he secretly ashamed of breaking his marriage wows, and only brought her to Winterfell so he could get rid of her by marrying her off eventually? 

 

“ _ Good luck telling your lady wife that I will come along. She will most likely see it as a sign of that once again, the  _ _ shame _ _ of her husband will end up robbing her precious children of something that rightfully is theirs. _ ” she finally says in a cold voice, the glare in her eyes bringing out the half-hidden lilac colour in her grey eyes.  

 

Lord Stark freezed at the glare, as if a memory have taken him in its claws and as he realizes how Catelyn is going to react, but before he could say anything, Joanna was already leaving his office.

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X   

 

For once, Joanna is actually happy with being seated by one of the lower tables in the Great Hall, where neither Queen Cersei or lady Catelyn can take offense by her presence.

 

“As if that foolish brat to Crown prince even would view me as prettier than Sansa…”

 

Perhaps as a reminder of who her father was, Joanna had inherited the classical Stark looks of a long face, brown hair and grey eyes, features only shared with her youngest half-sister Arya while the rest of the current Stark children had inherited their Tully mother's blue eyes and red hair. Even after so many years, and even if it had been said in all the innocence of a two-year-old, it still angered Joanna to remember Sansa looking down on the newborn Arya in the crib and ask if she were a bastard too, since she did not have the red hair or blue eyes. That had been one of the first times Joanna had been called a bastard since she was not born from the Lady of Winterfell, and realized why lady Catelyn never wanted to held her or allowing neither Robb or Sansa to play with her. 

 

“Damn, I am only making myself angry again!” Joanna thought and rose from her place, excusing herself to the others with that she was no longer hungry. Ghost, her albino direwolf pup, followed after her.  

 

She knew that in a way, she had it better than most other baseborn children. She had a father who had taken her in, rather than deny her existence and letting her try and live in the world alone, and even as a bastard daughter of Lord Stark she would be a good marriage deal for those who would not mind that strain on her background.  

 

Still, it did hurt. To never be fully accepted into the family, to never hear the name of her mother, or why she had been raised by her father. Sure, women did die in childbirth and that was a sad fate Joanna could not blame her unknown mother for, yet it infuriated her that lord Stark were so set on never mentioning the woman who had birthed her. 

 

“You and your cursed honor, father!”  

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X  

 

Once in King's Landing, King Robert Baratheon is the one person to ruin any marriage plans Ned Stark holds for his bastard daughter. 

 

“What?” Ned stammered in shock, unable to believe what Robert just had told him. 

 

“You heard me, Ned. My bastard Edric Storm is only four years younger than Joanna, and bastards have been legitimized before. They can create a cadet branch of both House Stark and Baratheon, should something happen in the future.”

 

As stunned of shock as Joanna is, she realizes that this could be her best chance. She does not want to marry yet, but a royal bastard is still a possible husband that is not a offer to turn down without reason. 

 

“If this truly is your wish, my King, may I just be allowed to request some time to meet and learn to know him before the wedding? I heard Lord Stannis say something about that his daughter Shireen is in need of new people to be friends with, and surely it can not harm that one of those friends is a cousin, even from the wrong side of the blankets?” she pleads to the King. 

 

Lady Catelyn may view Joanna as ill-bred and the reason to why Arya refuses to be ladylike, but today Joanna is dressed in her most simple dress and hair up in twin braids, perhaps a bit childish and plain style but she is always doing her best to blend into with the servants and avoid the courtiers who is most amused to see a bastard of a Great House being the target for the Queen's and Crown Prince's cruel remarks. 

 

“Of course, lass! You have gotten yourself a good girl with common sense here, Ned! Sad that she is not a trueborn, or my Joffrey may quit acting like a idiot with all the things my queen allows him to run wild with.” 

 

The pat on her shoulder were meant to be friendly, though Joanna were sure of that she would have a bruise the next day since Robert were stronger than he looked despite no longer being the dream man of noble maidens.  

 

“Sansa can have him, he and those pure Lannister looks that Joffrey have, golden hair and green eyes are not of my taste anyway…” Joanna mutters under her breath, making Ned look at her as if she suddenly had grown a second head. The King does not seem to have noticed, for he pulled her along to meet up with Lord Stannis and talk about that he will have two guests on Dragonstone.

  
  


As proof of how lady Catelyn have attempted to form Sansa into following her view on bastards, Sansa throws a big temper tantrum more worthy of little Rickon back home in Winterfell than the future Crown princess, at hearing that Joanna will marry before her.

 

“Why does the King insist on favoring Joanna, father!? I am the betrothed of his eldest son, the one who will marry the actual prince!” she screamed at the breakfast table when all four breaks the fast. 

 

“Because her future needs to be secured as well, born from a different mother or not,” Arya described as if talking to a small child. Joanna refused to say anything, knowing that Sansa is about to be unpleasant. 

 

“Mother is right, bastards is only going to end up stealing the inheritage of their trueborn sibs…!!”

 

That is where the line is drawn. Before Septa Mordane could stop the fight from breaking out, Arya tossed a fruit in Sansa's face so the juice strained her dress, while Joanna glares at her. 

 

“ _ Speak about my mother like that again, and I will give you the pretty head of your golden prince as my wedding gift. _ ” 

 

“You would never dare, it is treason…”

 

For the first time, Joanna proves herself to be a daughter of the North, cold and unmoving against Sansa attempting to lay the blame on others rather than see the truth. 

 

“And what happened that day when Lady were killed? You claim that the fault is with me and Arya, but you were the one to refuse to speak the truth, all to please the Queen!” 

 

Even Ned agrees that Sansa have crossed a thin line, and orders all three of them to their rooms.     

 

This was the last time Joanna and Sansa spoke to each others, before Joanna left for Dragonstone with Lord Stannis. 

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

As promised, King Robert had fixed all the needed proof of both Joanna and Edric being legitimized by the time they meet for the first time. Despite the age difference, and with Jonna being the elder one, they both agree that they should be able to live as a married couple. Shireen Baratheon is a shy girl at first, but happy to have new friends that is not scared of the greyscale on the left side of her face. 

 

The wedding is held at Dragonstone in order to keep the plans of a branch house starting quickly, neither one of the young couple knowing the irony of that Joanna is being wed on the same day as the War of the Five Kings will start, only hours before Eddard Stark is executed after a false public confession of treason. 

  
  


Two horrible years follows. Even without the horrible news of war, the Red Wedding and Sack of Winterfell, Joanna and Edric knows that the red priestess Melisandre would love to have them burned as sacrifices to R'hllor, as House Baratheon is both the current royal house and have blood from the Targaryens as well, while House Stark is one of the oldest houses in the North.

 

Help comes from a unexpected person: 

 

“Why are you helping us, Davos?” Edric asks as he former smuggler leads them down to a boat that will take them to a ship sailing for the Free Cities. 

 

“Lord Stannis is harsh, but he will not have his own blood die out, not with the Lannister Queen's children being the bastards of her own brother. King Robert may have loved whores a bit too much, but his bastard children will ensure that the House of Baratheon will live on for a few more generations, even on the wrong side of the blankets.” 

 

~X~X~X~X~X~X

 

It is in Lys, where they hides with their guardians and protectors, that their marriage bed is finally consummated. Edric is a early bloomer into manhood after his twelfth name day and proves to truly be the son of his father, as Joanna falls pregnant almost straight on the long-needed wedding night. 

 

“Well, let's see if three years of waiting can give fruit into a legal heir to House Baratheon and House Stark from this bastard line!” Joanna comments in hope, when the baby starts kicking in her womb. At the age of seventeen, she have changed a lot from the outsider she was in Winterfell and nothing else would have pleased her more than seeing the horrified look of disbelief on Catelyn Tully's face over that Eddard Stark's first grandchild will come from his bastard daughter.  

 

Just days before the birth, they get a surprise visit from a fellow bastard, Aurane Waters, who had been the one to help Davos Seaworth to smuggle them to Lys. According to Aurane himself, bastards should stick together against the world, even if two of them had been legitimized. And during his visit to give some news, Joanna give birth to twin sons. 

 

“Aurane...you do not happen to know if Lord Eddard Stark might have passed by Driftmark at the time of my father's Rebellion?” Edric wonders nervously at seeing the fine purple eyes of his second son rather than the grey eyes of House Stark, while the oldest boy is all Baratheon in looks. Joanna is still worn out from the birth, and had been shocked at how different the eyes of her younger son was when she saw it.

 

“Nope. House Velaryon have no daughters in my generation. Think back, at the Tourney at Harrenhal. It may be most famous for Rhaegar crowning Lyanna Stark as the Queen of Love and Beauty, but even if she was stolen some months later, the Rebellion lasted for over a year. A pregnancy takes nine months, unless the mother loses the child early.” 

 

Then it dawned for Joanna. Given the time needed to travel between the Tower of Joy all back in Dorne the Trient where Rhaegar had died, it would be impossible for him to make Lyanna pregnant just before his death. If Lyanna Stark died from a difficult childbirth where the child was stillborn, there was no way that she could be a secret Targaryen descendant.   

 

“ _ Ashara Dayne _ . If father fell in love with her at Tourney at Harrenhal and hoped to marry her...as the second son, he had not yet been promised in marriage unlike uncle Brandon and aunt Lyanna...the Rebellion and having to take over the role as the bridegroom in the marriage to lady Catelyn must have prevented him from marrying her! If she fell pregnant after a secret meeting, and…the shock at learning about the marriage to Catelyn...” 

 

It explained so much, now when Joanna thought about it. Why Eddard Stark had never talked about her mother, never mentioned her name even as she had pleaded to him. The suicide of Ashara Dayne were a well known tale, but not the reason why. She looked at her sons again. 

 

“Orys, for our eldest son, after the founder of House Baratheon. And his younger brother...Arthur, after his great-uncle, the Kingsguard.”

 

If the old gods and the Seven were kind, Joanna knew that the birth of her sons would be viewed as a legal reason for her to claim Robb's crown as a Queen in the North. Brad and Rickon were claimed to be dead, meaning that the crown would need to find heirs in the female lines of the three daughter of Eddard Stark. Sansa was married to Tyrion Lannister before the murder of Joffrey, and it was rather doubtful that the North would want Lannister blood in the now royal House Stark. Rumours said that Arya had been wed to Ramsay Bolton, but knowing her youngest half-sister, Joanna seriously doubted that it really was her who had stood as a bride. There was many girls at Winterfell in about the right age like the steward's daughter Jeyne Poole, and dark brown hair were pretty common in the North. No, the Arya Stark married to the Bolton had to be a false bride, a fraud just to claim Winterfell. 

 

“Aurane. Would it be too dangerous for you to sail up to White Harbour? If you can, please spread out rumours...that a Storm of Snow is going to claim the North and the crown of Winter.”  

 

If people wanted House Stark back in the North, then Joanna were ready to take up battle for what had been lost. With two sons already, one could have Winterfell while the other Storm's End. And if she and Edric were lucky, they would have more children in the future. House Stark and Baratheon had been joined into a cadet house, and by law they were to follow the main lines in terms of lineage.  


End file.
